The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." MONDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1905. CANCER RESEARCH.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12634, 23 October 1905, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." MONDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1905. CANCER RESEARCH.

Thh executive committee of the Imperial Caacer Research Fund has issued two volumes in continuation of those of last yaar, describing fully the work which has been carried on during the intervening period, and devoted respectively to the results of statistical inquiries into the facts of cancer occurrence, and to the growth of cancer under natural and experimental conditions. The principal results" obtained in both directions were briefly summarised by Sir William Church in a speech which he delivered at . Marlboroiigh Houso in July last: but he then expressed his sense of the difficulty of rendering a very technical subject completely intelligible to a non-medical audience. "The Times" therefore considered that it might be desirable to describe these results in the simplest possible language, and tp endeavour to show" the present, position' ,of the inquiry. With regard to the first of the two branches into which at the present stage it is divided, ''The Times" learns from the report that, it is not possible to determine whether the supposed increase of the disease is real or only apparent. Many other forms of» morbid growth present a deceptive resemblance to oancer; and, when any of these attack internal organs, the diagnosis must often be more or less conjectural. In many instances supposed cancer has been cured by various remedies, or, at all events, has disappeared subsequently to their application; and in all these instances the fact of the recovery has afforded tolerably cogent evidence that the nature of the malady had been mistaken. It is impossible to attain certainty, in many cases, except by a micioscopical examination of the diseased tissue, which requires for its correct performance no smiall degree both of special skill and of experience; and the certainty which could be thus afforded, either during life or after death, is practically attainable only in hospitals, or. at the outside, in a comparatively •small proportion of the deaths which aro attributed to cancer. Another difficulty arises from the fact that cancer has been shown to be generally a disease of old age, either of the system as a whole or of the organ in which the cancer has its origin. Certain organs of tho body bring their active life to a conclusion before the general bodily lifo terminates; and some of these short-lived organs, so to speak, are especially prone to be the seats of cancer. What is true of them is true also of tho system generally, and cancer is emphatically an affection of the decline of life, either local or general. It follows that the number of cases of cancer, wherever occurring, depends to an important degree on the number of aged individuals coming under observation, both in different races of mankind and in animals. This circumstanco has an important bearing upon the supposed epidemic occurrence of cancer, and points to the manifest possibility that an apparent* increase in its prevalence may be due to the provision, by a general increase of longevity, of a -larger number of individuals rendered liable by age to fall easy victims to the disease. An increasing mortality from cancer may mean a diminished mortality from other dis-e.'is-ss, and a consequent larger proportion of aged persons in the community. It has incidentally been established that no connexion is traceable between liability to cancer aud any particular habits in respect of food. Out of .095 cases reported from India, and occurring among natives, 146 were furnished by persona subsisting on a vegetablo diet; 137 by persons whose food was mainly flesh, and 222 by persons

living on a mixed diet. It was at one time surmised that liability to cancer might bo increased by excessive consumption of food of any sort; but this view is rendered untenable by the fact that few influences are more antagonistic to longevity than over-eating. It has been ascertained, by a very largo number of carefully conducted experiments, that cancer consists essentially of a definite alteration of cells forming part of the structure of the organ pri-ir-arily attacked, an alteration of such a kind that these cells grow and proliferate independently, escaping from the general control under which growth processes are kept by the organism in which they occur, and forming a mass which ultimately exhausts and destroys the animal in which it grows, just as the same animal might be destroyed by the growth of a parasite of foreign origin. With the death of the individual the growth perishes also, but merely because it is deprived of the r.ourishment which it has hitherto received. It has acquired a perfectly independent vitality and existence, and i«s capable of Being propagated indefinitely by what may be described as cuttings, if these be planted in congenial soil. A few of the morbidly growing cells, if inserted under the skin of another animal of the same species, will 6ften take root and flourish, in !ts' tissues just as they did in those of the original sufferer. In the new tumours thus formed, the growth element is provided by the transplanted cells, the supporting structures arid the nourishing blood vessels by the animal into which tlieso cells may thus be said to have an independent existence, as a plant has with regard to the soil in which it grows; and the cancer, like the plant, may apparently be indefinitely multiplied. A cancerous tumour the size of a pea, originating in a mouse, has thus been propagated in other mica until it has furnished cancerous material equal in quantity to the bulk of a St. Bernard dog; and the perishing ot the successive generations of mioa which have: supplied it with nutriment has apparently had no effect upon., 04 own vitality.. So far, however, it has not been possible to transplant cancer from any animal into another of different species; and transplantation is but seldom successful even when the second enimal, although of the same species, is of slightly different strain. A propagated canoar in'its fourth host, a Berlin wild mouse, was successfully, transplanted into nearly 50 per cent, of other Berlin wild mice which were inoculated from it, but in bo less than 2 per cent, of London wild mioa inoculated at the same times and under similar conditions. Apart from inoculation, there appears to have been a total absence of infeetivity from mouse to mOuss, and, although very large numbers of healthy mice have been kept for long periods in the same cages with cancerous mice, no communication of the disease, otherwise than by artificial inoculation, has ever been discovered among the animals under the observation of the committee. The liability of the mouse to a form of cancer which, in its main features and in its tendency to the formation of secondary growths in the affected subjects, is precisely analogous to the disease as witnessed in mankind, together with thefacility with which it may bo reproduced in healthy animals by inoculation, affords almost limitless opportunities for experiment. It has already been ascertained that morbid growths not uncommon in the dog, and upon the characteristics of certain . conclusions had .been founded, differ essentially from true cancer and are ' misleading with reference to it. It: has also been shown that the reference/, of the cancerous process to the presence of embryonic cells of arrested development is a hypothesis which cannot be sustained. The cells, in "dividing, produce only cells of their own Itind, although these are frequently of atypical character—that is to say, • they present certain departures from, type. This atypical character was the chief basis of the suggestion that cancer might be duo to the proliferation of embryonic tissue; but it has been found possible to demonstrate that this is not the case, and that the tissues, of cancer are specialised and constant, in contrast to the undifjyentiated cells of enibryoefil tissue. Although the-local circumscribed origin of cancer ia commonly as-sociated with o'd age, either in the individual of ~ in \ho organ primarily attacked, the subsequent enormous growth which exhausts and' en* dangers life is not dependent upon con* stitutional changes, but occurs in even more than ordinary intensity in young and healthy mice that have been successfully iiioculated. In several direotions, therefore, the ground has been greatly cleared, and tfte" ohief remaining problem is to ascertain why, and under what influences, the original modification*' of qell-growth occurs, why it is more intimately bound up with j the later than with the earlier stages in the life of the individual or of the affected organ, and what change or changes the cells of normal tissues undergo in acquiring cancerous properties. The results already attained are, as "The Times" concludes, far-reaching, and they point definitely to the necessity of searching for the nature and cause of cancer in the minute cellprocesses which are responsible for the ceofelesa prowth of the diseases when it is propagated artificially. Alike in the dissipation of errors, and in pointing out the directions of further research, the work already accomplished has been of vast importance, and is likely to bo of incalculable benefit in the future. It is but" a foundation, but it is one which will almost certainly support a superstructure, and it is the outcome of an undertaking which the public may justifiably he called upon to support. It is the more necessary to say this, because the treasurer of the fund tells the usual tale of treasurers, and iisks for an amount of further financial aid which we trust will be. freely acoorded.